Full bagger

Well, Selene is back in full bagger mode.  I got the saddle bags back the other day and they look great.  I just need to do a final polish and hard wax to get them back to a show room shine.  Now to get those engine guards to keep them safe!

K&N air filter

My new air filter arrived the other day.  I’ve always loved K&N filters and consider them to be a sound investment.  In some case you can get a horse power increase, but I just wanted a reliable reusable air filter.

If you own a Sabre, you probably know that the air filter is under the seat so you start with the rear seat nut which is an 8mm socket.

Then you move to the left and right sides of the seat to remove the 12mm bolts there.

 

Pull the seat off starting from the rear nut and note that there is a lip under the front of the seat that hooks into the frame.

With the seat off you have full access to the air box cover which is secured by four Phillips head screws.  One of those screws is wonderfully tucked away underneath the wire harness.  If you don’t have skinny fingers make sure you have a magnetic screw driver.

Pull off the cover and you can pull out the old filter.

When you get the old filter out make sure you clean out the air box of any gunk, dirt or dust that might be hanging around.  You don’t need to contaminate your brand new filter.

And here is the new pre oiled and ready to go K&N filter.  I love the look of these filters and the fact that they aren’t messy or dripping with oil like some others you can get.

The great thing about this filter kit is that it came with a gasket to apply to the underside of the air box cover.  It’s baffling as to why there wasn’t one in there when the bike left the factory.

Another cleaning tip: make sure you clean the underside of the air box cover to give the gasket a good surface to stick to.

Just peel of the white and stick it to the bottom of the cover.

Slide the new filter into the air box with the open end of the filter facing up and place cover back on.  Replace all four screws to secure the air box cover and you’re done.

The gasket holds everything much more securely then the original setup and doesn’t make it anymore difficult to get the cover back on.

I’ve put on a few kilometers with the new air filter in and I haven’t really noticed any difference in horse power or speed, but I really didn’t think it would have made a difference anyway.  I wanted the K&N for the reason that it’s rechargeable and it literally pays for itself.

That’s it.  A nice and easy upgrade for your bike.  Only takes about a half hour to install.

The Linbar

Well, for the two times that I've dropped my ride and repaired my saddle bags, I could have easily picked up a set of these. So now, they are added to my wish list.

Made by Lindby Custom, it’s the only engine guard that appeals to me.  The low slung styling is quite unique and the built in foot rests are an added bonus.

Comfortable when it’s cool

The last few days have been on the cool side around here.  Temperatures have been in the single digits and morning commutes hover around the freezing mark.  Usually that would mean wrapping up and possibly the full face helmet.

Well, things have changed a bit since Selene’s new addition.  I can easily ride to work in the wind and cold with just my shorty on.  The fairing does wonders for cutting through the wind and keeping just enough cold away from my head.  I’m still a bit chilly when I get to work, but it’s nothing like I’ve been used to.

Memphis Shades fairing?  Sound investment.  Oh…and it looks cool too. ;)

Irked

Okay, I thought changing my rear brake pads would get rid of that damn squeak. Apparently, I was wrong. Every time I come to a stop the rear brakes start squeaking. It's irritating the holy crap out me! I inspected the disk when I changed up the pads and everything looked fine. It was so nice to do low speed turns without a single squeak coming from the rear end, but it all ended two nights ago.

I'm at a loss. Anyone out there have any suggestions before people start staring at me for swearing my head off as I come to a stop?

The fairing

So, here’s the big thing added to Selene.

I’ve never been a big fan of windshields and the day I took the H-D Road King for a test ride cemented that.  I found the wall windshield to be big, cumbersome and only served to make the ride oddly uncomfortable.  The batwing on the Street Glide though?  Superb.  It had looks and the ability to take the wind away from my chest and hands.

I knew that Memphis Shades made a universal batwing, but finding the mounting hardware in grand old New Brunswick last year proved to be difficult.  This season, Memphis Shades has everything readily available and a few calls produced the entire kit for me in about a week.  Keep in mind that there are three things you need to order for a complete install.  The fairing, the mounting hardware (or plates if you already have a mount) and the windshield.

So, as usual, here is my little write up of the install and my thoughts on the addition to my ride.

The batwing came nicely secured in a full size box wrapped in foam.  Memphis took a good amount of measures to make sure it was delivered scratch free and in one piece.  I would suggest handling the fairing with some kind of cloth gloves on to prevent scratching.  Keep in mind that the fairing is molded Lucite® acrylic and easily scratched.  They supply every tool you’ll need to mount it except for the 8mm socket wrench to remove your signal lights.  The biggest problem you’ll have is trying to get the mounting equipment off the vacuum wrapped cardboard.

With everything out of the boxes and plastic it was time to remove the signal lights.

With this done slip the lower fairing mounting bracket in behind the signal light bar and reinsert the bolts.

I wasn’t big fan of how close the upper section of the bracket comes to the fork covers.  In all likelihood it will come in contact with them if the bike gets jarred a lot.  The only bonus is that this mounting system will likely never come off the bike.

Next up, removing the upper triple tree pinch bolt with the supplied 6mm Allen wrench.  When these are out, you can place them off to the side as they won’t be used again.  The kit comes with new long bolts for the installation.

Now take the L-shaped upper brackets and remove the lower Allen bolt (opposite the L section).  Pop the L-shaped upper bracket in place and re-insert the Allen bolt, but don’t tighten it all the way.  These L brackets must be tab up and facing the forks as per figure 2, below.  Put in the new longer Allen bolt with the spacer in the triple tree pinch bolt hole.

With the brackets in place we can move on to the fairing itself.

Please, keep in mind that the brackets get mounted facing inward.  I got a little ahead of myself and put them on completely wrong.  You find out rather quickly once you try to mount the fairing to the bike.  Please note the picture below illustrates the WRONG way to put it on.

If you put the bolts at the bottom of the holes in the bracket you will end up with the fairing as close to the headlight as it will go.  It looks the best this way and will help block more wind.

Now that you’ve mounted the brackets the right way, go ahead and slip it onto the lower and upper bushing assemblies.  I found this best with help…which I thankfully had around for the whole install.  The fairing will go on, but it will give you a bit of a fight.  If I was by myself, I could very well have scratched the fairing trying to get it onto the mounts.

You have limited adjusting room with the upper bushings and can move the fairing forward and back with them left loose.  Find the best spot for the fairing and tighten them up.

In fact, now is the time to tighten up all the bolts.  The last thing you need is this beautiful piece of plastic taking your head off on the highway.

Now the windshield itself…which has to be ordered separately.  Yes…separately.  Anyway, I ordered the smoke black windshield and it looks fantastic on the black fairing.  It’s simple enough to install, but again it’s easier with help.  One person holds the windshield in place, the other installs the hardware.  Again, use cloth gloves if you have them, the windshield is easy to scratch.

You get three nylon nuts, washers and Allen bolts.  I’ve got them mounted ass backward on my windshield, still wondering if I like it that way or not.

Tighten it all up and…that’s it, you’re done!

Make a final check on all the bolts and pat yourself on the back.  Or get your buddy to point at the fairing saying, “Now that looks cool!”

My thoughts?  I love it and Selene loves the attention.  It’s made a huge difference in the amount of wind that hits my chest, has made my April rides that much warmer and makes the highway a lot more comfortable to ride.  There is a small amount of buffeting, but compared to the amount of wind I’m used to it’s nothing to complain about.  I bought the fairing so I could take it off when I didn’t need it, but now I think it looks so good that I’ll never take it off.  Oh Gods…I’m a convert!  *hangs head in shame*

I do intend to get the lower deflectors and the chrome windshield trim later on.  The chrome will just accent all that black and I’ve read that the defectors make quite a bit of difference.

I will not be getting the fork lowers as the only ones I can get attach to my fork covers and I’m not willing to do that.

That’s it.  Hope you enjoyed the write up.

Realization

After that last post about wanting the helmets, I realized that I could be using this blog to store everything for my wish list. Yeah, a little slow on the uptake...I know. At the very least it will be a good place to point family when they ask, "What do you want for such-and-such occasion?" Might also make me post more...hmmm...

I want

It's not often I find a helmet to add to my wish list, but I've fallen in love with these limited edition Bell 500 series brain buckets.

A change

I seem to have shot past my blog anniversary.  Four years now...wow.  I try to make a change to the blog whenever that time comes around.  So, going with a complete template change to a more minimalist look.  Easier to read and navigate.

Bits and pieces

Topped up the oil today, she was running a bit low.  Also made the jump and changed up the rear brake pads.  First time for myself and the manual I "borrowed" from the internet was missing the exact pages I needed to guide me through it.  Oh well...nothing ventured, nothing learned.

The inside pad came out just fine, but the outside one got stuck in place by the caliper.  I ended up having to take the entire brake assembly off to get the second pad out.  Once that was done I had to fight with the hydralic caliper to get it to sink back into it's well.  For a bit, I thought I was going to have to bleed the brake line to get the caliper to release.

I replaced what was left of the stock pads (GG grade) with EBC brand Double-H.  They are supposed to give better brake response.  We'll see.  The underground garage doesn't give much room for testing.  Today's maintenance done at 36408 KM.

Checked out the front pads and they were just fine.  Only needed to be cleaned up.  Seems I have been favouring the rear brakes.  Tsk tsk...

There's also been a big change in Selene's appearance.  I'm currently working on the write up for that.

The weather here has been fantastic for April so I've been blowing off work to pound out as many kilometers as I can.  It's gonna be a damn good summer.